Read Online A Wizard Alone New Millennium Edition by Diane Duane - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Diane Duane
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soft-cover book. He was rocking very slightly, while next to him a young male teacher sat and read to him from the book.
There he is.
But still not there, Ponch said.
Then where, exactly?
It’s hard to tell from here. I need to get a better scent. We should go in.
Kit nodded. No point in going all the way back to the doors, he said, and flipped through the manual for yet another spell. This spell, too, Kit had prepared the night before, knitting both his and Ponch’s names and descriptions into it. The wizardry included a variant of the Mason’s Word, which involves a very detailed description, in wizardly terms, of the structure of stone. As both wizards and physicists know, even the densest stone—indeed, almost all “solid” matter—is mostly empty space. Now as Kit and Ponch walked toward the wall of the school, all the atoms in their bodies and the atoms of the wall engaged in a brief, complex, stately little dance, carefully avoiding one another in droves as wizard and dog passed through brick and mortar and reinforcing metal. A moment later, Kit and Ponch were standing inside the classroom.
The room was carpeted, which made it easy to walk softly. Kit and Ponch made their way carefully around the edge of the room, toward the side where Darryl sat on the floor, looking at the book. Or is he really? Kit thought, as his point of view changed and he could see more clearly that though Darryl was looking at the book, the expression was abstracted; if he was intent, it was on something else. His face was wearing the shadow of a smile, but it was hard to tell what he was smiling at.
They paused near him, behind him, while the teacher kept reading something about the seven wonders of the ancient world. Ponch stood looking intently at Darryl, his nose working, while Kit looked over the boy’s shoulder, trying to make something of that remote expression. Definitely his body’s here, Kit said. But as for the rest of him …
Far away, Ponch said. I can show you where now, though. The scent’s strong.
Okay —
In a moment. Ponch sat down and started scratching.
Unfortunately, in this small quiet space, a sound that Kit heard all the time, so often that he didn’t pay attention to it anymore, suddenly made itself apparent. It was Ponch’s dog-license tag and name tag, on his collar, jingling together. Just about everybody in the classroom, except for Darryl, looked up in surprise, trying to figure out where the sound was coming from.
Uh-oh, Kit thought. That was dumb! To Ponch he said hurriedly, and silently, Now would be a good time!
Right—
Ponch stepped forward, pulling the leash tight, and vanished, just as Darryl’s teacher got up from the floor with a mystified look and headed toward them. Kit stepped forward after Ponch and vanished, too, relieved—
The wind hit him then, so that Kit staggered, staring around him, half-blinded by the sudden blazing light after the soft fluorescents of the classroom.
“Where are we?”
Inside his mind. He’s here somewhere, Ponch said.
Here was a landscape right out of the depths of the Sahara. Kit and Ponch were perched precariously on the crest of a dune so sharply wind-sculpted that its edge could have been used for a razor… except that every second, the wind stripped grains off it, eroding it, and whipping sand off the other dunes that stretched out all around them. A hard blue sky came down to the horizon on all sides, featureless; it held not a wisp of cloud, only the fierce sun… yet there was something mysteriously indistinct about that sun, as if, even in that sky, dust obscured it.
“Just look at all this,” Kit said, gazing around him. “Is this just the way his inner world looks to him? Or did he build it this way for some reason?”
I don’t know.
Kit shook his head. “I’ve seen an interior landscape or two in my time,” he said, “but wow, this one… This is huge . Look at it, it goes on forever…” He scanned the horizon.
There he is.
But still not there, Ponch said.
Then where, exactly?
It’s hard to tell from here. I need to get a better scent. We should go in.
Kit nodded. No point in going all the way back to the doors, he said, and flipped through the manual for yet another spell. This spell, too, Kit had prepared the night before, knitting both his and Ponch’s names and descriptions into it. The wizardry included a variant of the Mason’s Word, which involves a very detailed description, in wizardly terms, of the structure of stone. As both wizards and physicists know, even the densest stone—indeed, almost all “solid” matter—is mostly empty space. Now as Kit and Ponch walked toward the wall of the school, all the atoms in their bodies and the atoms of the wall engaged in a brief, complex, stately little dance, carefully avoiding one another in droves as wizard and dog passed through brick and mortar and reinforcing metal. A moment later, Kit and Ponch were standing inside the classroom.
The room was carpeted, which made it easy to walk softly. Kit and Ponch made their way carefully around the edge of the room, toward the side where Darryl sat on the floor, looking at the book. Or is he really? Kit thought, as his point of view changed and he could see more clearly that though Darryl was looking at the book, the expression was abstracted; if he was intent, it was on something else. His face was wearing the shadow of a smile, but it was hard to tell what he was smiling at.
They paused near him, behind him, while the teacher kept reading something about the seven wonders of the ancient world. Ponch stood looking intently at Darryl, his nose working, while Kit looked over the boy’s shoulder, trying to make something of that remote expression. Definitely his body’s here, Kit said. But as for the rest of him …
Far away, Ponch said. I can show you where now, though. The scent’s strong.
Okay —
In a moment. Ponch sat down and started scratching.
Unfortunately, in this small quiet space, a sound that Kit heard all the time, so often that he didn’t pay attention to it anymore, suddenly made itself apparent. It was Ponch’s dog-license tag and name tag, on his collar, jingling together. Just about everybody in the classroom, except for Darryl, looked up in surprise, trying to figure out where the sound was coming from.
Uh-oh, Kit thought. That was dumb! To Ponch he said hurriedly, and silently, Now would be a good time!
Right—
Ponch stepped forward, pulling the leash tight, and vanished, just as Darryl’s teacher got up from the floor with a mystified look and headed toward them. Kit stepped forward after Ponch and vanished, too, relieved—
The wind hit him then, so that Kit staggered, staring around him, half-blinded by the sudden blazing light after the soft fluorescents of the classroom.
“Where are we?”
Inside his mind. He’s here somewhere, Ponch said.
Here was a landscape right out of the depths of the Sahara. Kit and Ponch were perched precariously on the crest of a dune so sharply wind-sculpted that its edge could have been used for a razor… except that every second, the wind stripped grains off it, eroding it, and whipping sand off the other dunes that stretched out all around them. A hard blue sky came down to the horizon on all sides, featureless; it held not a wisp of cloud, only the fierce sun… yet there was something mysteriously indistinct about that sun, as if, even in that sky, dust obscured it.
“Just look at all this,” Kit said, gazing around him. “Is this just the way his inner world looks to him? Or did he build it this way for some reason?”
I don’t know.
Kit shook his head. “I’ve seen an interior landscape or two in my time,” he said, “but wow, this one… This is huge . Look at it, it goes on forever…” He scanned the horizon.
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